Monday, March 1, 2010

ATF seizes toy guns, but it is no laughing matter to the Chief Counsel's Office -- "Little Jimmy" Vann reported to be near mental breakdown.

This is what I have been told by Waldo, the inside snitch on the fifth floor of the "Concrete Asshole of the Universe" (ATF headquarters):

James P. "Little Jimmy" Vann is reported to be apoplectic at the prospect of these poor toy importers deciding to go the route of demanding a federal civil forfeiture action, just like Georgia firearms designer and manufacturer Len Savage.

This would be very bad juju for Little Jimmy, thus his hyper-ventilation.

Of course, given this choice bit of info, CPT R.A. Bear is, at this very moment, ringing up the victims in this case and suggesting that very thing.

Anyway, while this seems to be a boneheaded mistake on the ATF's part (and they're rapidly digging that hole deeper and deeper...), it could also be a bureaucratic reaction to the fact that serious folks training with airsoft is becoming incredibly popular, adding immeasurably to "Get off the X" tactical drilling.

That training is becoming a clear and present danger to any Federal agencies that might be tasked with gun confiscation.

With that said, I'm glad that the airsoft community now knows what it's like to be a victim of an ATF mistake.

To some extent gov being morons, but these are some very close replicas, even being able to be broke down. Apparently they decided that it wasn't too hard to swap out the upper and trigger group, but with Olofson, who knows what that actually means.

Yeah, the backward-mag thing was an eye-roller, but even more terrifying was what the stupe was saying...

"...Any adult going outtada house wit dis... (pregnant-pause) He should be ready for trouble!..."

And he's talking about TOYS!!

It wasn't clear whether he is a BATFEces or CBP?

I read it all - David's post and the whole article he linked, and watched the vid - this is all the info we have. I tried to seriously and neutrally evaluate what we know.

We know there's no way to fire live ammo as-is, though I'd love to see the vids if the if the FTB decided to try. Hopefully they'll order a coupla-hundred "re-tests."

The article said an AR upper could be - with a bit of work that any machinist could do - made to fit the lower. The lower however can't fire the AR upper, nor can an AR TG be installed without further machining and etc.

Let's say - for argument - someone went to all the trouble and expense of buying an upper, a TG and other misc parts not to mention a machine-shop, and training to avoid having to buy a lower that can be had for $70?

Even so, it can only fire S/A with an AR trigger-pack, just like any other AR - it wouldn't be the evil "machine gun" (oh NOooooooes!!) they're trying to portray.

As we know, to make it full-auto would require a full set of FA components in addition to everything else above - once again the only thing you'd get from the toy is - arguably - a lower receiver.

No way some machinist would ever decide to order an Airsoft gun from Taiwan for its lower, when he could easily make his own - even FA.

So... they're lying.

Can you believe we went through all that to establish what we already know?

"These rifles could have had far-reaching and potentially devastating ramifications if they had gotten into the hands of individuals who wanted to do harm in the American population", Customs and Border Protection Area Port Director Rolando Suliveras Jr. said in a news release.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.